I've always been a Windows user.... Yes I know I deserve to be hung from the nearest lamp post but I am beginning to see the error of my ways and am looking at switching away from Microsoft after playing with Windows 8. I do have a couple of questions that I need to get answered before I decide to take the plunge.

My current system is an Phenom Quad running at 2.3GHz with 8GB DDR2 RAM, GTX 260 Graphics Card and 1TB drive So I know it will handle Linux with ease but I need some clarification regarding some of the programs I currently use.

I know that I can use programs like Libre Office or Open Office to replace Microsoft Office but my biggest concern is iTunes and World of Warcraft. In my iTunes library I have approximately 600 albums and 300 podcasts that I listen to both on my PC and my iPod Nano 5th Generation so I need a program that is not only a media player but will manage my podcasts and will allow me to update my iPod. With regards to World of Warcraft I know it is a windows program but I have heard that some people have got it running on Linux so I was wondering if anyone here had done it and if so how easy was it or am I going to have to keep with Windows at least for gaming?

I am fairly new myself, but I will give you my impressions where I can.

In general, I'll say right off, if you are heavily tied to any proprietary Windows programs, you should, sorry to say, stick with Windows. I don't know what version you are running, but I have a lot of experience with Windows 7, and it's awesome. It's fast, easy to use, and very stable. And it just works with all those Windows programs, it will even find an load drivers when you need them, all that stuff. I don't want to chase you from Linux, but you should know that even at it's best Linux does not fit easily in a Windows-dominated world. You will have to make a lot of adjustments, and do a lot of work.

As far as your specific questions go, I'll start with one you didn't ask, but which is implied. In my experience, LibreOffice *will* open Microsoft Office files, and will save in that format, but it is most definitely NOT like opening these in Microsoft Office, at least for Word and Excel. The file will look very different, and in many cases a lot of the formatting will not transfer from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, and files saved by LibreOffice in the Office format will not be readable by Office. If you have very simple files, with little formatting, you will probably be ok, but (again, in my experience) even working between Office on Windows and Office on Mac things look different, so imagine going to a completely different program which is trying to open and save proprietary files. I will have to say I have at time been able to get Office itself to somewhat work in a Linux environment called WINE, but that is not particularly easy or stable, eiether.

With iTunes, I am told you can get it to work with WINE, except for anything that involves connecting to Apple. You can't do that. And, though you can play things you bought from iTunes in several different Linux players, in my experience, you can't make a CD of anything from Apple. Maybe you can transfer songs you already have to your iPod, I don't know about that, but you will not be buying any new ones or using whatever they call the iTunes cloud in Linux, I am pretty sure.

I don't know about the game. I do know that Linux is notorious for not supporting 3D video, as the drivers are proprietary, so they have to reverse engineer them. You can get proprietary drivers, but it can be a huge amount of work to get them to work (Linux Mint does a great job at that, by the way). I 'play' second life, and the only distro that I have found that works with my computer to do that is Mint, and it's not like I just gave up right off with the other distros--I have spent months researching and posting trying to figure out how to make it work in something other than Mint.

I know this isn't a glowing endorsement of Linux, but really you have to be committed to sticking with it and making it work. It isn't a direct replacement for Windows in the least. There are a lot of rewards, or I wouldn't be investing so much time in using it. But if you want something that does everything you are used to doing with same amount of effort that Windows takes, you will be very disappointed and frustrated. However, if you choose to do it, there are a lot resources to help you. As remoulder said, all the common things, and most of the uncommon ones are covered somewhere either in the Mint Forums, or elsewhere online. And, failing that, or if you are confused by what you find, if you show you have done some research, people will generally help you.

I have been a Windoze user for many years. Still use one at work and intermittantly here. Use a Mac for other things. Tried Ubuntu before and it was okay.

I don't know if its the look or interface or what- but I absolutely love my LM! It does everything I ask of it. Sure, some things are a little awkward for me, because I've been doing them another way for twenty years. But the basic of it, I ask it to do it and it does. No bloated ware. No "unsupported version" or any of that stuff. I really would try it- I think you will be pleased!

nibbler wrote:I've always been a Windows user.... Yes I know I deserve to be hung from the nearest lamp post but I am beginning to see the error of my ways and am looking at switching away from Microsoft after playing with Windows 8. I do have a couple of questions that I need to get answered before I decide to take the plunge.

No, I don't think so.I started with dos, win3.11, win95,98,2K,ME,XP,vista,7.I still use and support some people on WinXP and Win7.

Not yet play win8, no comment there

My current system is an Phenom Quad running at 2.3GHz with 8GB DDR2 RAM, GTX 260 Graphics Card and 1TB drive So I know it will handle Linux with ease but I need some clarification regarding some of the programs I currently use.

Very good rig.No issue running Win, Lin etc

I know that I can use programs like Libre Office or Open Office to replace Microsoft Office but my biggest concern is iTunes and World of Warcraft. In my iTunes library I have approximately 600 albums and 300 podcasts that I listen to both on my PC and my iPod Nano 5th Generation so I need a program that is not only a media player but will manage my podcasts and will allow me to update my iPod. With regards to World of Warcraft I know it is a windows program but I have heard that some people have got it running on Linux so I was wondering if anyone here had done it and if so how easy was it or am I going to have to keep with Windows at least for gaming?

I think it is easy to adjust using office software in Linux.

For serious gaming, stay with Win. Simple. Yes you can sweat with wine, virtualbox all that, if you have lots of time to learn and ask in many forums.

However, if you want to play or learn Linux, no problem, you do not need to give up win OS.

Let Win7 or whatever win OS you want to keep, use it for your gaming and itune or any programs that can only run from windows.

Simple multiboot your computer, 1TB is a lot to play with. just add a few cheap USB stick ( you will know why if you choose to play Linux OS)

Linux OS just need some 5G-10G size, so for 1TB, say you let your windows OS to take half, you still have 500G to play any Linux OS, multiboot as many as you like, learn by playing, and continue to keep your windows OS and not sacrificing gaming and unique windows application.

I'd like to chime in regarding the office suites: I can't share the pessimism. Unless you make books with MS Word (which you shouldn't ), standard formatting works well with Office files. Excel can be more tricky, but still works okay. Plus, I found I don't share documents all that often, so mainly I'm saving in ODT (the open document format) anyway. Just to add voice to it not being such a big leap. Also, you can always create a PDF if you want to send someone something to read.

Can't say anything to iTunes, sorry. It's a very closed platform, so that may get ugly...Regarding WoW, I never tried personally, but there are people out there who claim it runs effortlessly. Since there are so many WoW players, chances are good someone got it working. Just google "wow linux wine" (wine is the windows emulator for linux) and check out how people did it.

teilnehmer wrote:I'd like to chime in regarding the office suites: I can't share the pessimism. Unless you make books with MS Word (which you shouldn't ), standard formatting works well with Office files. Excel can be more tricky, but still works okay. Plus, I found I don't share documents all that often, so mainly I'm saving in ODT (the open document format) anyway. Just to add voice to it not being such a big leap. Also, you can always create a PDF if you want to send someone something to read.

Agree - most 'issues' are with using macros and more complex functions in Excel. As a word processor, and for presentations, LibreOffice is just fine (though I change the defaults so that it saves word-processor files as .doc, as I share with Word users all the time).

teilnehmer wrote:Can't say anything to iTunes, sorry. It's a very closed platform, so that may get ugly...

I'm afraid I have found iPods a pain in Linux. (I don't have an iPod myself, but I have friends who do and sometimes I have to help them ...) If you install the program GTKpod, that might help.

I think the Word issues (and those of other software, of course) depend on your needs, and how much say you have over your workflow. I don't write 'books' at work, but I do write 50-page technical reports with tables, graphs, headers and footers, references, and all that. I can't use .rtf format (I think that is pretty much what .doc files are too), as I need to use all the formatting features that modern Office has, and my files need to be in the docx format, so everyone else at work can just use them. I work at a big company, not my own small business, so I can't just switch to the Windows version of LibreOffice at work and live in my own little non-Microsoft Office universe. I looked at the LibreOffice site a few days ago, and really, they don't seem to claim full compatibility with Office documents, either. They seem to mostly say what several ppl have said here, if you have to, you can share, but they seem to mostly talk about using a LibreOffice environment instead of an Office environment.

I say this not to discourage people from trying Linux, in the least! I really love the OS, and find myself annoyed at work to not have it. However, when I get to the application level, even though I can do most of what I want with Linux apps at home, they just don't have the features and smoothness of the commercial apps, and they don't fit that well into the Windows universe we live in. For what you pay, yes, they are unbelievable! But for me, for real usability and productivity, it's like using something 10 years old--think Gnucash versus Quicken, as I guess I have beat to death, LibreOffice versus Microsoft Office.

Mu big concern is Linux getting a bad rap by people expecting it to be something it isn't. Really, I would recommend anyone committing solely to Linux to make sure that they can do the things they need before they take the plunge. I know a lot of people go the dual-boot route, which is great, but a lot of other people just go for it, then feel misled. I know, it's really their own fault deep down, but I personally am deeply committed to full-disclosure. Yes, you can make most anything 'work', if work to you means if you put in a lot of effort and are willing to accept, for instance, accepting less functionality (such as only putting formatting in documents that will transfer through .rtf files, or not having merged cells in a spreadsheet, or macros, or whatever). Some of us (including me, except for my work stuff) are willing to do that, a lot of people are expecting it to be like when they used Windows, except not having to pay for anything or deal with a large evil multinational. I for sure love that last part, and the transparency of what my system is doing, and that's why I'm here, but I don't expect a free office suite used by a few thousand (or tens of thousands) people to have the same features as one sold for $120 - $500 a copy and used by tens of millions of people.

I'm not sure but I've heard or seen that world of warcraft can be run with play on linux/wine.If you get it working, please posts your experiences here I'd like to try it myself.

The other option of course is to dual boot linux/windows. Myself, I do this. I use linux for most of my day to day tasks now.I still boot into windows xp to run dc universe online, my video editing suite and a few other things that don't work with wine.

You could also attempt to run winxp in a virtualbox, but in my experience very demanding apps (like games) run slowly or barely work this way.

I'm hoping that linux gaming will improve. Seems retarded to me that a technically superior os/platform is largely ignored by developers, but things doseem to be improving...

I'm looking forward to the day when I won't need to reboot to do anything.

If you find you need MS Office you can always run Windows in VirtualBox, so long as you have a licence and media to install it. I need to use Adobe Creative Suite every day but I run it in a VM. For me, it is a perfect solution. I haven't actually booted Windows on my dual boot PC for months now.

Here is what I didI installed a small Windows 7 partion (75 gig)---this lets me have access to a true windows session as for example, if I need to update my system bios or dvd bios, almost guaranteed that a windows application exists but not for Linux or anything else. So instead of trying to make a usb stick drive boot up windows...I am already ready to go

Then I install Linux Mint which will recognize Windows 7 and install along side of it

Once I get that running, I install Wine and VirtualBox (installing Win 7 on VirtualBox)

Now, if I want to play some Windows only game or use Itunes, I'd try Wine first, for best performanceThen try VirtualBox*Note: If you use VirutalBox, set it for SEAMLESS mode and the Windows applications work with the Unix desktop "seamlessly" that you would not know if it is a linux version of the app or the Virtualbox running it